Luthiel's Diary 3
General Summary
Ugh, seriously, I don't know how much more of this I can take! It's been, like, a million years since I've seen the sun. And green food? Healthy stuff? Forget about it! I don't even want to THINK about what we're eating, but I know it's SO not good for my skin. And my hair? ARGH. Just don't even go there. It's probably a total blessing I don't have a mirror, and my armor is so gross I can't even see my reflection. And my clothes? Sooooo dirty. They just won't stay clean! Plus, they're all ripped and worn out. I've kinda given up on ever meeting anyone cute down here, but even if I did, they wouldn't give me a second glance in this outfit.
We got attacked by these HUGE spiders the other day, and I got spider blood ALL in my hair and on my tunic, and then I got totally paralyzed. It was just the WORST. And then we ran into some Dark-kin, and I was actually doing really well trying to talk to them and convince them we weren't there to fight, and then it all went totally wrong, and we ended up fighting anyway. And they shot me! Like, kept shooting me! I feel so useless and like I'm no good for anything. What am I even DOING down here?!
Oh, and there was a demon in that last fight too, I remember just before I passed out from the poison and the pain. Seriously, what are ANY of us doing here?
Anyway, the others obviously managed to kill the demon and the dark-kin (though I think they said the leader got away) while I was unconscious. When the big priestess woke me up, she said they found the body of this Elf, Elondwe, all tortured by the darkkin. Poor guy. I mean, I know he once said I looked like an oak tree, but he totally didn't deserve that. It just shows you that there are always elves who have it worse than you, and maybe I should try harder to look out for the less fortunate. Obviously, anyone who saw me now would think I was a total loser, so I guess that gives me some empathy for people who just aren't naturally as pretty or talented as me. So, today's resolution: pull myself together and remember that there are elves who have it way worse, okay, self?
Another day of marching through the dark. I think we're now eating these fungi we found down here. They taste like what I imagine earwax would taste like. I just KNOW I'm going to break out from them. We've apparently decided to leave the main path to go check out something "interesting" on the map - a silver circle. I thought we were supposed to be rescuing the half-elf, but I guess non-elves can't help it if they get distracted all the time.
So, we walked and walked and walked, and finally found this cavern with this huge stone tower in the middle, lit up by these weird crystals in the ceiling. We couldn't find any doors, just tiny windows, and the halfling, who turned into an owl (so random!), found this invisible wall when he tried to fly into one. But the wizard guy just brushed that off and made a tunnel through the outside wall. We went inside, and it was this huge round room going all the way up the tower, with doors all around on the ground floor. Either there were a ton of tiny rooms, or the doors were, like, portals to other places. There were also two balconies way up high that went all the way around - they might have had doors too, but we couldn't tell. In the middle of the floor was this giant silver symbol of a half-moon, which matched the one on the map, so we were obviously in the right place.
As we walked into the room, this female dark-kin just appeared in the middle of the moon symbol. Unlike the others we'd seen, her skin was as dark as night, but her hair was still white. It was actually a pretty cool look. I don't think a lot of elves could pull it off, but she totally did. She was wearing these super fancy robes too, and just totally screamed rich and powerful. Not literally screaming, obviously, that would have been SO uncool and would have ruined the whole vibe she was going for.
She demanded to know, in this super bossy way, in old-fashioned Elvish, who we were and what we were doing in her tower. I realized that even though I totally failed at talking to the dark-kin last time, I needed to forget about that and step up, 'cause no one else here could speak elvish except the priestess. And while she's okay once you get to know her, she doesn't exactly make a great first impression. Although, compared to the orc, she's actually not that bad. But anyway, I CAN be good at talking to people, I know it! All my training and stuff is for exactly these situations, and it's not my fault I look like I've been sleeping in a muddy swamp. I just need to trust myself. I know I can do this.
So I stepped forward and introduced myself, and we started this whole tense conversation. I tried not to tell her too much about us, but also get as much info from her as possible, since she was the first darkkin who actually talked to us instead of just shooting us right away (okay, that's not totally true, the last ones did talk, but that went downhill FAST). This time I think I did way better.
After I gave my name, she said she was Morwen and that she worked for Lady Dagorblascht, whose palace this tower was part of. It belonged to House Ulatar, which she said was one of the oldest dark-kin houses, going all the way back to when they lived under the sun, before the Sundering, I guess. But now they were just one of the fifteen minor houses, totally overshadowed by the five great houses. Their moon symbol showed how old their house was, 'cause it was a symbol of the surface world. I bet hardly any of the dark-kin have ever even looked at the moon or walked in its light. It made me realize how much I miss it, even though the light from the crystals in this tower and the cave outside kinda looks like moonlight.
She also, like, hailed the orc guy as someone wearing the armor of a knight of Asberdiesa. I have no idea where he got that armor or who Asberdiesa even is, but I always thought it made him look super-edgy. Obviously, the dark-kin respect whoever's armor it actually is.
I said that we only had a problem with House Eilservs, and she said they were a rival house (though it sounded like all the houses were rivals to some extent). She said her house was loyal to Queen Lolth. I've heard of Lolth as this totally scary darkness demon from old stories about the Sundering and before. If their queen named herself after such a horrible demon, then things are probably going to get even worse the further we go.
She looked at our map and said it showed the way to Erelhei-cinlu, which was a dark-kin city with palaces for all the houses, including hers. The other great houses she mentioned were: House Tomtor, whose symbol was a flaming spear; House Despana, whose symbol was a mushroom (we found one of those tokens on a dead body in the spider place House Norqua, whose symbol was a nightmare's head; House Eilservs, whose symbol was a wavy dagger, like we've seen a million times; and House Everhate, whose symbol was three crossed daggers.
Then she basically dismissed us and told us to leave for our own good. And to prove her point, the balconies suddenly filled up with dark-kin warriors! So not cool.
We left, but before we did, we made a deal that we'd try to mess with House Eilservs and let her know when we did, so her house could take advantage of it. She said if we made it to Erelhei-cinlu, we could send her a message with the code word "Ssendam," and she'd get it. We totally don't trust her not to break her word or stab us in the back when it suits her. I bet she probably doesn't trust us either, but I think we have the upper hand 'cause she's probably too arrogant to realize how capable we actually are. I've seen them in action. They might not be elves, but they are a seriously destructive force, like something out of a nightmare.
We went back the way we came to the hallway split and went back to the main passage. While we were doing that, the wizard guy sent a magic message to Sentinel, and I was SO relieved when she replied that she was still alive and even making jokes, so she couldn't be in too terrible a situation.
After walking on the main passage for a while, we found this narrow path going off to the side. We checked it out for about an hour, but didn't find anything - just a hallway that seemed to go on forever. But when we got back to the main passage, we heard noise, and the halfling, who was scouting ahead, saw a big group of trolls, hobgoblins, and dark-kin marching upwards, like they were headed to the surface! We let them pass and wondered if they were looking for us, or going to reinforce the guard post we destroyed, or if they were a raiding party going to the surface world. We have no idea, but I'm just glad we didn't run into them in the main hallway.
After that, when we rested for the night under the wizard's force dome, this one dark-kin walked by in the hallway and then stopped to check out our dome before moving on. We don't know if he was a scout or a messenger, but it's pretty obvious that he knew what he was looking at, so they definitely know we're here.
Towards the end of the next day, we realized we were getting to a fork in the path, which we thought might be one we saw on the map. Finally, something familiar!
Ugh, you guys will NOT believe this. It's like, taking me FOREVER to write about today 'cause it was just one thing after another of total weirdness. Seriously, my brain feels like scrambled eggs right now.
So, the halfling, who was being all sneaky and invisible thanks to me (obvs!), saw four of those totally creepy rat-men that we saw, like, ages ago (could have been days, weeks, who even knows anymore in this darkness?) They were hanging out with those tentacle-faced guys, you know, the ones some people call mind flayers. They didn't seem like they wanted to fight or anything, and it kinda seemed like this WAS the junction we were expecting 'cause the map even had a picture of one of their weird heads on it.
They weren't being mean, so we were hoping they were just, like, a watch crew, and I could totally charm our way through, or if things got desperate, the orc could just be all scary and bully them into letting us pass. We kept going, and they actually moved back to let us through, but then they all huddled up again behind us. I yelled in super old-school elvish that we weren't trying to cause any trouble, just needed to get through safely. And then we heard this guy's voice calling for help from a side hallway. It sounded like a dark-kin, and definitely wasn't Sentinel, so we just kept going, remembering poor Elondwe and all the awful stuff they did to him. But then, as we kept walking, we saw ANOTHER group of rat-men up ahead, and then BAM! This invisible wall of energy just appeared and trapped the big fighter and the halfling on the other side! We turned around, and there was one of the mind flayers standing right in front of us. Before we could even freak out, this wave of, like, psychic energy just slammed into our brains and totally stunned all of us. Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall, the big fighter guy threw this huge ball of fire at the rat-men and they all scattered. Slowly, the orc, and then me and the wizard started to shake off the mind-blast thing and started attacking the mind flayer and its creepy servants. The big fighter and the halfling teleported through the wall to help us, but then the mind flayer did this confusion spell thing on our minds, and the fighter and the halfling totally fell for it. Oh, and the priestess too, but it didn't really matter 'cause she was still just standing there all dazed. Then ANOTHER mind flayer showed up behind us with all the rat-men who had regrouped, but the wizard filled the whole area with this bright, glowing energy that made them all sick, and then he hid behind me! I made this shield of faith thing around myself, and it actually blocked all the arrows they were shooting at me. The first mind flayer finally got taken down by the orc and the big fighter and the halfling, even though the priestess was still just staring into space. The other mind flayer totally ran away from the sick-making light, and we chased it into this cave right off the hallway, but it was totally empty except for this dark-kin guy who was, like, dying. The wizard, the priestess (who was finally back to normal), and I ran back into the main hallway and saw the mind flayer running downwards. The priestess made this wall of blades appear all around it while it was still in the sick light, and then it, like, totally died.
When we checked the bodies, we didn't find much except for another map on one of the mind flayers - and this one was even WEIRDER and more alien-looking than the dark-kin map we already have! Seriously, what IS this place?!
Ugh, this new map? Total mystery. Like, trying to figure out what it even is a map of is gonna take, like, a million years. And where are we on it? Your guess is as good as mine. The dark-kin guy totally kicked the bucket before we could even ask him anything. Maybe he's the creepy loner who found our campsite last night? So annoying!
Report Date
30 Oct 2024
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